Furs and fabrics : transformations, clothing and identity in East
Greenland
Buijs, C.C.M.; Buijs C.C.M.
Citation
Buijs, C. C. M. (2004, May 26). Furs and fabrics : transformations, clothing and identity in
East Greenland. Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde. CNWS Publications,
Leiden. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/56410
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dissertation
Author: Buijs, Cunera
Notes
Introduction
1. Inuit are accustomed to identifying themselves in relation to the place in which they live. The name of a people is composed of their settlement or area (Tunu- means East or back, backside) followed by a suffix –miut, or in the East Greenland language –miit, which means people. Nowadays the East Greenlanders use a new modern spelling based on pronuncia- tion and on new ideas of orthography, for which a new dictionary has yet not been pub- lished. In this publication the latest published East Greenlandic orthography is used. 2. Today, the Ammassalik district counts c. 3000 East Greenlanders, Tunumiit. They live in
the districts capital Ammassalik (Tasiilaq) and in seven villages; one of them is Tiniteqilaaq, with c. 160 Tiniteqilamiit, where part of this research was conducted. Many East Greenlanders still make a living out of hunting seals, polar bears, and whales, and they fish for cod, salmon and capelin, and gather mussels, seaweed and berries. They now combine these activities with paid jobs in the medical sector, in industries, trade, at the municipal- ity, in education or other service organizations. Tasiilaq is the East Greenlandic name for Ammassalik. ’Ammassalik’ (place of the ammassaat [capelin] ) was the name given to the area by the Holm expedition in 1884 and stems probably from the West Greenlandic mem- bers of the expedition. In this volume Tasiilaq and Ammassalik are used as synonyms, with preference for the first.
3. In this volume, details which are not essential to the main argument are presented in a small font.
4. Archeological clothing remains cannot be found, owing to the warm summer conditions in East Greenland. Extensive archeological research has been carried out in this region by Mathiassen (1933), Meldgaard (1977), Gulløv and Rosing (1993).
5. Graah was the first European to travel to the East Greenlanders’ area. He did not reach Tasiilaq (Ammassalik). (See Graah 1837.)
6. Tinbergen wrote a popular book Eskimoland (1934) about the life of the East Greenlanders and about popular aspects of his own bird research. The four scientists involved in mete- orological research were Van Zuylen, Van Schouwenburg, De Bruïne and Van Lohuizen. The Dutch biologist Tinbergen conducted ornithological research, especially on snow buntings and auks. He published a dissertation on this subject. Recently letters and a diary from Van Schouwenburg and Van Zuylen have become available. The Van Schouwenburg letters have been published (2003).
A tradition of furs,
Clothing in East Greenland at the end of the nineteenth century
1. “At Angmagssalik fjord, which comprises a considerable coastal area, there were only four- teen settlements in 1883, with a total of 413 inhabitants. Ikatek, the biggest, had fifty-eight people; the smallest, Nunakitit, had only fourteen.” (Mauss 1979:29.) It is not known how many East Greenlanders there were before 1884.
2. Pierre Robbe (1994b) argues that communal and individual interests were often thriving. Sometimes the nuclear family dominated, while at other moments the relations within the extended family were more important.
3. See Nooter (1976) in ‘Leadership and headship; changing authority patterns in an East Greenland hunting community’.
4. In the world view of the East Greenlanders, there was a land of the dead under the sea and another in the sky.
5. See also Petersen 1984a:631-632.
6. For the techniques of preparing sealskins, see Holm and Thalbitzer (1914), B. Robbe (1975), Buijs (1993), Hovelsrud-Broda (1997). For measuring techniques, see Oakes and Riewe (1995:51) and Issenman (1997b:86). For native terms and East Greenlandic orthog- raphy see appendix 1.
7. The official West Greenlandic orthography of 1990 (Berthelsen et.al.) is used here; amaat refers to different types of women’s coats in which a child can be carried, encompassing both the seal- fur outer coat tattulaq and the seal-fur inner coat amaarngut. In older literature the term amaut (in Canada amautik) is used, and comes closer to the East Greenland pro- nunciation.
8. Where possible the latest published East Greenlandic orthography of East Greenlandic terms is used in this volume, published in Robbe and Dorais’s ‘Tunumiit oraasiat’. See amaarngut in the appendix 1. Bernadette Robbe uses the transcription amaangrut. 9. Some informants mentioned that very small children already had their own clothing. They
were dressed while carried in the amaarngut (see also Holm 1914:63). Others, however, have indicated that there was a short period, lasting nine days, in which an infant did not have clothing.
10. One photograph may indicate a loose children’s cap (not connected to the coat) (Christensen and Ebbesen 1985:90 right side). The children’s heads were also decorated or protected by an adornment made of beads; this might also be part of the hood of the chil- dren’s anorak, which could have been decorated with beads (Christensen and Ebbesen 1985:69,79,90 left side).
11. An Inuit mother kissing her baby on different places on its body is, naturally, not only a magical protection of the child, but it is a type of embrace as well.
12. See also Hansen (1976) ‘Grønlands Billeder’, planche 10 and 35.
13. Garments that were soiled with excrement were cleaned by scraping. Sometimes water or urine could be added for this purpose. The same technique was used to clean an amaarngut on the inside after the baby had defecated in it. “Garments were just skins” an informant said. They were cleaned in the same way as skins were processed. Mothers let their very small children urinate outside the amaarngut, keeping the garments clean. This was also observed in Tiniteqilaaq in 1985 and 1997.
Notes 231
the hood before his face” (Holm 1914:100) in order to protect oneself against strong dan- gerous powers.
15. The term piaaqqusiaq is composed of the following parts: the root is piaaqqaq or child, lit- erally “the (a) young one”; -qu is meaning “what is added” and “addition”; -siaq may be translated as ‘result”, “something made”, “something obtained” (Michelle Therien, person- al communication 1997).
16. This custom was also known in West Greenland. (See Rasmussen 1979:14.)
17. An informant explained the use of a too-large kayak anorak by a small boy in East Greenland. This particular case was probably connected with the naming system. A child who was named after a deceased relative would sometimes not only receive hunting equip- ment or a seal net, as was still the case in Tiniteqilaaq in 1997, but also garments, such as a kayak anorak. It could be a garment of a much longer size, due to the age-gap between the child and the deceased former wearer. Thus, the child received not only the name, but the garment as well. Boys wearing female clothes and girls wearing boys garments must be seen as a sign of changing gender, a social phenomenon current in East Greenlandic soci- ety (see Robert-Lamblin 1981)
18. See also Bodil Kaalund’s work on Greenlandic art, in which she mentions, in connection with a photograph stemming from the Thule area at the end of the nineteenth century, a Thule girl wearing the hood of her amaat up as protection after she gave birth to a still-born child (Kaalund 1979:134).
19. This cap is now in the National Museum in Copenhagen; the Museon in The Hague also owns such a cap, as part of the Tinbergen collection (nr 56544). According to ‘Den Grønlandkse Ordbog’ (Schultz-Lorentzen, 1980:222) “piârkusiak” means in West Greenlandic language: “only child of whose older brothers or sisters had died” (translated from Danish by C. Buijs). The people from Tiniteqilaaq in East Greenland did not use this term to indicate the child’s (protective) hood, and preferred isseq or isivat. They also used these terms to designate the hoods of women’s amaatit and men’s anoraks (see appendix 1). The form of these hoods greatly resembles very the form of the separate hoods for children. Therefore, in connection with the children’s hood, the term piaaqqusiaq is probably better translated as: “hood for children with many brothers or sisters who have died”. This may not be the correct East Greenlandic name for this type of hood. (See also Chr. Rosing 1946:101.) 20. Frequently in Inuit life, first (social) events were marked in some way. The catching of one’s
first seal was celebrated, and having one’s first dress was accentuated by gifts. The first time a boy was given his kayak, or the first time he came home with prey, magic chants were sung (Holm, 1914:88). See also Therien (1987).
21. Anne Bahnson, personal communication 1998. Bernadette Robbe wrote in her article on the East Greenlandic women’s coat that girls wore these coats at a very early age (Robbe 1993:136). This “very early age” could be two, three, four years old. Robbe and her hus- band have carried out research in Ammassalik and Tiniteqilaaq from the nineteen-sixties up to the present day. Therefore this habit was certainly current in the middle of the twen- tieth century , and the habit of wearing amaatit by very young girls (and sometimes boys) may already have existed in the nineteenth century.
22. See NMC Ld 130.4 Ryder 1892. 23. Decorated girl’s boots RMV 2085-6.
25. See appendix 1.
26. Source: interviews in East Greenland, 1997. “For adults”.
27. There was also a women’s coat with one light, contrasting fur element in front, but this was only seen occasionally at the end of the nineteenth century. (See Kaalund 1979: fig. 221, page 140.)
28. A variant existed in Alaskan fur coats. Among the Copper Inuit, broad white front panels were sewn into the men’s and women’s coats. (See Holm 1914:575; see also Issenman 1997b:238.)
29. For patterns of the tattulaq above and the girls’ coats, see figure 9 and figure 5.
30. Among several Alaskan Inuit groups the winter coats are decorated with beautiful fur fringes. They were meant to enable harmful spirits to leave. It is possible that the fringes on the East Greenland women’s coats served this purpose as well.
31. The seal-fur women’s coat protected mother and child against cold, wind and humidity. The same clothing principles were used as in many other Inuit coats and parkas from Alaska, Canada to Greenland and even Siberia. First of all there was a double layer of fur, the inner fur with the hair side turned inwards, the outer fur or outer garment with the hair side turned outwards. Between these two furs an insulating layer of air was trapped, and served to keep the wearer warm and comfortable. Secondly, the garment was very tight at the bottom. This also helped to keep the warm air inside. Furthermore, the hood was made to protect mother and child against cold, wind and humidity, and prevented cold air from directly entering the lungs of the young child and its mother. (Holm 1914:32; Driscolle 1980:14; B. Robbe, 1993:137; Buijs 1997:13-14)
32. The tails of the Inuit coats became shorter as one moved from the Western Arctic to the Eastern Arctic. In East Greenland only a short tail (up to 10 cm) was left (see also Oakes 1987). These flaps, just like the garment itself, may have expressed the fertile status of its wearer, as was the case with some Canadian Inuit groups. “The back hemline was rolled up to the inside and tied under the armpit. Traditionally, once the wearer began menstruat- ing, the ties were cut and the tail was allowed to fall to its full length.” (Oakes 1987:21.) 33. Jens Rosing mentioned an amulet sewn to the inside of the tail of a women’s coat of one of
the mummies of Qilaqitsok. The head of a black guillemot was used here to facilitate an easy and quick delivery. This bird moves very rapidly (J. Rosing 1998:157).
34. This garment is better known as amaat (West Greenland), amaut or amautik (Canadian Inuit). See also the appendix 1.
35. Recently this method of carrying babies on the bare skin of their mothers has been adopt- ed in western hospitals. Today doctors perceive its advantages, and provide young parents with an opportunity to carry their prematurely born children in this way.
36. See appendix 1.
37. Coat no. NKA 141 Ld 130. See also Christensen and Ebbesen 1985: 58, Gustav Holm Samlingen 1985:33 and Bahnson 1997:70.
38. An example of a women’s gutskin coat is NMC Lc 376, the National Museum of Copenhagen, a girl’s gutskin coat with small hood, differing slightly in shape from the women’s amaarngit and tattulat. This girl’s gutskin coat may come from Southeast Greenland, or else it is an ancient type of garment (see also coat NMC Lc 378). It was pur- chased from East Greenlanders by Rink in Julianehåb, Southeast Greenland, in 1854. 39. Based on information gathered in East Greenland in 1997.
Notes 233
size as short trousers NMC L 5072 (L. 26 cm, B. 42 cm, H. 25 cm), NMC Ld 133.10 (L. 21 cm, B. 42 cm, H. 30 cm ), NMC Ld 45.2 (L. 29 cm, B. 39 cm, H. 32 cm). There may have been a long variant of the women’s trousers. In any case this garment was exception- al, and women usually wore short trousers of a typical East Greenlandic shape.
41. Gessain, Dorais and Enel describe these decorated longer women’s trousers as “women’s breeches (West Greenlandic model)” (1982:129).
42. See photograph of the first persons baptised by Pastor Rüttel, Ammassalik, April 1899 (Christensen and Ebbesen 1985:28).
43. AI 43.915 and AI no. 21.490 (in Christensen and Ebbesen 1985:10,14), Holm (1914) fig. 25.
44. AI no. 50 (Cristensen and Ebbesen 1985:28). This holds true also for the years 1900 (AI no. 58 and 150), 1901 (AI no. 52 and AI no. 145 by Rüttel, in Christensen and Ebbesen 1985:35,36), 1902 (AI no.42 by Rüttel, in Christensen and Ebbesen 1985:38).
45. In the Canadian Arctic the custom of wearing small children within the long and wide women’s boots is frequently mentioned. This is not known from the Greenlandic women’s boots. The East Greenlandic boots were probably not wide enough to carry children in the boot edge. (‘Inuit of Hudson Strait’, Henry Ellis, 1748). The bracket-shaped edging of the women’s boots was found in some boots of the mummified women found in a grave at Qilakitsoq, West Greenland. (See Issenman 1997b:23.) This upper bracket edging was probably an ancient characteristic of Inuit boots from Greenland. But the combination with the bulge-shaped nether part of the boots created a boot-type typical for East Greenland.
46. Although Holm only mentioned the first type of long women’s boots “with a notch in front at the top”, the boots with U-shaped decoration existed in East Greenland already as far back as 1898 (Holm 1914: fig 24, photo J. Petersen), 1899 (Christensen & Ebbesen: pp. 28, AI nr 50, photo Pastor Rüttel).
47. See appendix 1.
48. Young unmarried women used long white women’s boots; red women’s boots indicated the marriageable phase; whereas black or violet indicated widowhood (Mariane Petersen, Nuuk 1997, pers. comm.; Kaalund 1979:122, 146-147). This social categorisation is not known from the traditional boots of East Greenland, but may also have existed, or have been developed in the twentieth century due to continuing influence from West Greenland. 49. Also many myths and tales narrate the relationship between women’s long boots and
reproduction (Boas 1904 and 1907; Thalbitzer 1914:581; Oakes and Riewe 1995:101-102; Issenman 1997b:164; Sonne 2001 and [s.a.]). Nordenskiöld was already aware of the sex- ual connotations of the women’s boots, and he wrote that young unmarried women played the coquette with their footwear, their small feet, and their well-shaped (bare) legs (1885:470).
50. The long women’s boots were not practical in the sense of offering protection against the cold (since they were not made of fur but leather), suppleness (it was hard to bend the knees) and mobility. Much of the women’s work was performed while they were sitting on the platform, or outside the house, standing or sitting with outstretched legs. The long boots were not inconvenient in this position.
51. Head scarves were also used in West Greenland in the nineteenth century, however, they were not made out of skin but of cloth.
(MH 34.175-3489 and 3490). They were probably used to keep the wrists warm (Bernadette Robbe, personal information.) The difference in size may indicate a different use, one on the wrists, and the other on the ankle, as was described by Christian Rosing (1946).
53. Chaussonnet also mentioned this aspect for Alaskan peoples. She stressed the importance of making garments as well and beautifully as possible, sewing the stitches in the right way, “so that the hunter wearing the garment would please the game”. In the case of Alaskan whaling, new clothing was made for the men (1988:212). The same holds good for other aspects of material culture; hunting equipment, especially, had to be beautiful. An animal would prefer to be killed by a beautifully made and decorated harpoon, and therefore this equipment proved to be more successful. The skills required for making beautiful hunting equipment and beautiful garments were valued highly.
54. Source: interviews with some elders in Tiniteqilaaq and Ammassalik.
55. Since there were almost no reindeer and hare in this area, clothing made from the skin or fur of these animals was not produced in East Greenland (Thalbitzer 1914:406,574). 56. During the period of Christianization, a connection became apparent between baptism,
cutting the hair, and cutting the coats straight. Cutting the edging of the coat straight has had a spiritual connotation. See page 24.
57. An example of these sleeves deriving from West Greenland can be seen in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden (RMV1076-7), dating from 1892. 58. The ‘spring pels’ (literally:’jumping fur’) or ‘combination suit’ was also to be found in West
Greenland, and ceased to be used at the end of the nineteenth century (see Glahn 1771:148-149 and Hatt 1969:96). There are only two examples of qarlippaasalik in the museum collections of the National Museum of Nuuk, Greenland and the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg, Russia.
59. Information received by informants from East Greenland. 60. Personal communication Birgitte Sonne 2000.
61. See appendix 1.
62. KNM Ld 122 Ryder 1892.
63. Various names were used to indicate these polar-bear fur trousers.
64. In shape and pattern the polar-bear fur trousers were comparable to seal-fur trousers: not very long, although one pair was very low in front, leaving a man’s abdomen uncovered; reaching down to the knees or just over the knees; fastened at the back by means of lacing through the upper edge and through the leg edgings.
65. Holm used the term naatsit for inner breeches, which is similar to the West Greenlandic term, but also naatseen , which comes closer to the present-day term used by many East Greenlanders.
66. See Holm 1914 page 30; Thalbitzer 1914 page 582 ff.
67. See the appendix 1 with Greenlandic terms used for this type of boots and shoes.
68. See men’s seal fur boots in the collection of the National Museum, Copenhagen, NKA l1544 collected by Johan Petersen in East Greenland in 1897 and NKA Lc309 collected by curator Hollbøll in Southeast Greenland in 1850. The latter boots are decorated beautiful- ly. For decorations see figure 31, this volume.
69. See men’s seal-fur boots in the collection of the National Museum, Copenhagen, NKA L5024.
Notes 235
71. See a photograph taken by Johan Petersen in East Greenland in 1900, now in the Arctic Institute of Copenhagen AI nr 6046.
72. A cap of this kind can be seen in the museum collection of the Nationalmuseum in Nuuk, Greenland, no. NKA 515 (see figure 34 in this volume).
73. The name used for snow goggles (ittaat) is nowadays used for spectacles.
74. Norn argued that in cases of eye diseases common in Greenland (mild myopia and astig- matism) this reduced vision is an advantage. The reduction in vision is also advantageous in misty weather: “In dazzle conditions visual acuity is increased as much as threefold.” (…) Vision is not impaired in cold weather, because the slit goggles do not freeze over [where- as modern sunglasses do].” (Norn 1996:22.)
75. Different types of hunting hats, visors and eye shades are known from the Aleutians, as Lydia Black has pointed out in her work ‘Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear Alaska Sea Hunters’ (1991). In this area different types of headgear were connected with differ- ent forms of hunting and different prey. Prestige and hunting success were also expressed by this headgear. Symbolic aspects connected with power and spirits, which may be help- ful during the hunt, also played a part (see Black 1991). Unfortunately, there is little infor- mation available on these symbolic aspects of East Greenlandic eye shades, and the sym- bolic meaning of blood as dye.
76. Norn mentioned that snow goggles were painted black with seal oil and soot. This increased the light-absorbing effect and protected the eyes against ultraviolet light (Norn 1996). 77. An informant mentioned that a woman wanted to make a necklace out of European glass
beads. In order to purchase them, her husband had to sell a complete umiak. In this peri- od these beads were only available to successful and wealthy hunters’ families.
78. Dolls or small wooden human figures as amulets can be seen on the amulet strap NKA 1882-19 in the Landsmuseum at Nuuk. There were a large number of dolls in East Greenland at the end of the nineteenth century. Not all of these dolls were used as amulets; girls used them as toys. They played with these dolls, which were given the names of deceased relatives, or of living persons who the children had visited. Dolls may have been used in socialising girls, in teaching them about the naming system and the social relation- ships within the society. (See also Holm 1914:32; Thalbitzer 1914:625, 644ff.) Dolls were also placed on small children’s anorak hoods as protective amulets. A doll made from a spe- cial fast-growing wood would help a (male) child to grow more rapidly than others, and to become a tall man on reaching adulthood, a man who would not be afraid of others (Chr. Rosing 1946:69-70).
79. Garments could become powerful amulets when magical chants were sung: “Kunuk’s stepmother “sang over his anorak” to make him invulnerable before he went away to fight his enemy. (...) The amulets become alive. Misana, Imerasugsuk’s unhappy wife filled her anorak with lamp moss and put it on her own place on the platform with the back turned outwards.Then she hid herself. “When he stabs you, shriek!” she said to the anorak, and it really became alive and wailed when Imerasugsuk stuck his knife into it.” (Thalbitzer 1914:631.)
80. Atterneq (Robbe and Dorais, ‘Tunumiit Oraasiat’, 1986: 233) was written as agdlerneq by Rosing in the old orthography.
81. In West Greenland stone houses were frequently used as graves. The walls were pulled down to cover the dead (Hart Hansen et al 1985:63).
deceased through the window also existed in West Greenland. When a person died in a tent, the corpse had to be removed though the back of the tent. Holm observed that this cus- tom prevailed among the ‘Scandinavians’ or ‘heathen Icelanders’ (Holm 1914:74). Among various Siberian peoples, a dead body was removed though a small window under the roof, in order to deceive the spirits, who might discover the way in which the deceased had gone, and go after that person. Even worse, the spirits would come to the house and threaten the relatives. When a child was born, after several weeks it was brought into the house through this small window, so that the evil spirits would lose the baby’s track (Taksami 1968:414; Black 1973:51,52; Hart Hansen 1985:68-69).
83. According to Boas, clothing and tent skins had to be removed after a person died among the Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay, because the seals were able to see the vapour of the deceased in a dark colour, and they would keep away (Boas 1907:144).
84. This custom was also known from West Greenland. (See Kaalund 1979:134-135.) 85. See also Kaalund 1979:139.
86. In several Canadian Inuit cultures, those who touched a human corpse were dangerous because of the pujartuq (Canadian Inuit orthography) or vapour, and therefore all contact between the hunters and those polluted by death (or menstruation and birth) should be avoided, because the seals could see this vapour and would keep away (Oosten 1997:113; Boas 1907:120,144,486-487).
87. The drum dances held recently in East Greenland, with a female player dressed in nation- al costume, may be a remnant of a more historical time in which a female player may have worn her best dress. According to R. Petersen, it was also mentioned, with regard to Upernavik, that song contests were performed at the winter solstice, and “it must mean that people wore new clothing” (Martin Nielsen, ‘Simuk qaersormio’, Avangnamioq 1955). “It was the rule to wear new clothes at song contests, and there were song contests at the sol- stice.” It is not clear whether this new clothing was made for the song contest or for the sol- stice. (Robert Petersen personal communication 1999.)
88. A famous shaman’s coat is known from an Iglulik angakoq, collected by the whaler captain Comer in 1902 (Boas 1907:509-510; Oosten 1997:120-121). It was not made to be used in a séance, but to represent a meeting between a shaman and spirits.
89. Angakkoq in West Greenlandic orthography (see Appendix 1).
90. Mitaarneq is the equivalent in the West Greenlandic language, but nowadays it is referred to by East Greenlanders as Kunngit pingasit, a term going back at least as far as 1965. 91. According to Paul Egede (1750), Otto Fabricius (1804) and Samuel Kleinschmidt (1871)
respectively, following I. Kleivan (1960:6).
92. One of the actors sometimes playing a leading role at the festival was Nalikkateq, the woman on the way to the moon.
237 Notes Furs and Fabrics
lungs and eat them. She is often depicted with a drum and a hide or dog’s head between her legs.”(Møbjerg et al [s.a.]:31.)
94. Inge Kleivan based this information on Thalbitzer (1923:309) and ‘The Ammassalik Eskimo’ (1914:663ff).
95. Uniarpua means literally: “I drag something with me”.
The West Greenlandic and European impact,
East Greenlandic clothing in the first half of the twentieth century
1. During Graah’s journey along the East coast of Greenland, he counted about six hundred inhabitants in 1829 (Graah 1837). In the first half of the nineteenth century, a partially recorded migration south took place in East Greenland. In the church records in Frederiksdal, Ejnar Mikkelsen found 335 østlændinger (East Greenlanders) in Southeast Greenland who had been baptized between 1822 and 1832. Graah mentioned 536 inhabitants in Southeast Greenland, whereas Holm counted only 135. Between 1832 and 1884 the Frederiksdal’s church books registered 274 baptized East Greenlanders. The exact number of migrants can- not be found in the church records, since not all migrants from East Greenland were baptized. When Gustav Holm came to East Greenland in 1884, the population numbered 413 indi- viduals. Between 1884 and 1892, when Marine Lieutenant Ryder travelled to Scoresbysund and Ammassalik, 118 Individuals travelled to Umivik and even further south to the already established trading posts. In 1900 the last thirty-eight inhabitants of East Greenland migrat- ed to Julianehåb. To prevent the depopulation of the area, a mission station was established at Itivdlek in Southeast Greenland. When Ryder came to East Greenland in 1892 the pop- ulation had dropped to 292 people. The south coast of East Greenland became depopulat- ed, and the journeys south became more dangerous to the East Greenlandic families (Mikkelsen 1934:38-39; see also Holm 1914:105-112 and Eistrup 1989:84).
2. The establishment of new settlements in uninhabited areas along the east coast reinforced the land claims by Denmark against Norway, which exercised hunting and fishing rights there (Robert-Lamblin 1986: 12, 150; Petersen 1984a; 622).
3. Children who had no relatives were helped by the organization instituted by Ejnar Mikkelsen and Sara Helms. The advantage of fostering children in the settlements was that these children remained within their own Greenlandic cultural environment, and were not transferred to institutions or foster homes in Denmark.
4. Kaarali (Kárâle) Andreassen became the first East Greenlandic catechist to be educated at the seminary in Godthåb (Nuuk), and he was appointed in Kuummiit. Mrs. Thalbitzer, who was an artist, had taught him to draw. Kaarali became East Greenland’s first and most famous artist. Today, his paintings are in the collections of Greenland’s National Museum in Nuuk, the National Museum in Copenhagen, the Museon in The Hague, and in sever- al private collections. (See figure 49 this volume.) Kárâle was not the only artist among the clergymen; Hendrik Lund was a talented watercolourist, and he became Greenland’s most famous poet (Mikkelsen 1934:64; Lidegaard 1993:170). (See figure 54 this volume.) The Rosing family also produced many famous painters. In the old orthography Kaarali is spelled as Kárâle (Karl in Danish).
6. For barter and trading activities, the permanent presence of the Greenlanders was not nec- essary. On the contrary, the dispersal of the population over the entire area of East Greenland yielded more hunting products such as sealskins and polar-bear pelts. In this respect, the interests of the mission and trading posts diverged at the beginning of coloniza- tion. These conflicting interests did not disturb their friendly relationships and coopera- tion. After a Greenlandic minister was appointed in Ammassalik, the relationships between the church and the trading post became less close (Eistrup 1989:97-98,113-114). 7. In the second half of the twentieth century, Christian names were still inherited from ances-
tors, and the ancient naming system continues up to the present day. A solution was found for the difference between male and female names, resulting from the adoption of Christian names. Traditionally Greenlandic names were not gender-based, and a newborn child of either sex could be named after a deceased relative of the opposite sex. In the twentieth cen- tury the East Greenlanders developed a naming system employing pairs of Christian names of both genders. This allowed them to continue naming girls after dead male rela- tives, and boys after female relatives (Pierre Robbe 1981; Buijs field notes).
8. In the 1930s, tattoos for women had almost completely disappeared. Therkel Mathiassen wrote that, during his work in East Greenland in 1931-1932, some old women were still tattooed. Tattooing probably disappeared as a result of baptism and Christianization. (See Mathiassen 1933:143, and Thalbitzer 1914:608.)
9. Information on children’s clothing in East Greenland in the first half of the twentieth cen- tury is based on the photographic collection of Jette Bang and others at the Arctic Institute in Copenhagen, the museum collections of the Musée de L’Homme in Paris, the Museon in The Hague and the private photographic collection of Van Zuylen.
10. See photograph by Van Zuylen, depicting a small girl, probably aged between three and five years, wearing a white cloth amaat, Ammassalik 1933, Van Zuylen private collection and RMV no. AF 172.
11. Girls’ outer trousers, characteristic of East Greenland, are preserved in the collection of Musée de L’Homme in Paris (MH no. 34.175/3337) and the Museon in The Hague. One of these pairs of trousers shows a remarkable use of a few white and red beads instead of ammassaat vertebrae, which were previously used as ‘beads’ to decorate clothing.
12. Long seal-fur trousers for girls were not often seen on photographs from the 1930s and 1940s. Girls would spend a great deal of their time inside the houses together with their mothers, grandmothers and aunts, learning female skills such as skin preparation and sewing. Therefore, warm fur clothing was less important for girls than it was for boys. See the section on trade.
13. See the photograph collection of the Arctic Institute and the National Museum, Etnografisk Samling, in Copenhagen: AI no. 7666 and AI no. 7789 (published in Christensen & Ebbesen 1985: 92-95), KNM L 60 (published in K. Hansen 1976: 43 dating from 1906; and AI 4889 dating from 1917. Jette Bang photographed a hair ornament in East Greenland in 1937 (AI no. 2938). This was a traditional type, without long decorated bead strings hanging down on both sides of the man’s face in a half a circle.
14. See the collection of the Musée de L’Homme MH 34.175/3277.
15. I have found no accounts of early confirmations in East Greenland. In the second half of the twentieth century confirmations in church were important personal and family events. 16. He documented his photographs, specifying the occasions such as weddings, names and
Notes 239
17. Thuesen (at press) argues that in the eighteenth century in West Greenland, the black anorak also evoked the black jacket of the men’s suits, which was the current festive colour for males at that period (Laver 1996:232 ff.). Black anoraks were not incorporated into the daily clothing of East Greenlanders, since this fashion had already changed in West Greenland, when East Greenland was colonized.
18. The women of Greenland were acquainted with the fine dresses worn by the few Danish women in the area (see Hansen 1976: Plate 31, 84, 108).
19. Anne Bahnson (at press) deals with the question of whether the West Greenland women’s coats made of reindeer skin were used as wedding dresses in West Greenland as far back as the beginning of the nineteenth century. She argued that it is reasonable to assume that, in West Greenland, the Christian faith and rituals influenced the clothing worn by the Inuit. 20. Thuesen connects this custom with the German Moravian missionaries in South Greenland
(Thuesen at press: 4-5).
21. There is a dark blue hairband made of woollen cloth in the collection of the Musée de L’Homme, numbered MH 34.175-2637 b, whereas hairband MH 34.175-2637a provides a good example of a combination of traditional sealskin and red cloth.
22. Johan Petersen in Sandgreen (1994:121-122).
23. Only a few young women began to wear short hair. Short hair was not fashionable among the women of East Greenland during the 1930s, but was seen much more often among girls in that period.
24. Photographs from the end of the nineteenth century show women with decorated topknots, using the kind of decoration with a hair ribbon and loose hanging strings of beads men- tioned here. Whether or not red textile bands or seal-leather bands are depicted, cannot be inferred from these black and white photographs. (See Christensen & Ebbesen 1985: 87, 90, 94, 98, 108.) There were no cloth hairbands found in most museum collections dat- ing from the end of the nineteenth century. There are small numbers of red cloth hair rib- bons (and one dark-blue one) dating from the 1930s in the National Museum in Nuuk and in the Musée de l’Homme (MH 34.175/2637).
25. See photograph collections of Jette Bang and Jacob van Zuylen.
26. Mikkelsen suggests that the importance of Christmas can be explained by the valorization of the period of darkness and the expected return of the sun, so important to the Greenlanders (Mikkelsen 1960:94).
27. Translation from Danish by the author. 28. J. Van Zuylen, written information 1933.
29. The bishop had a bishop’s cape (biskoppip uliguaa), which could be worn on top of the long black gown.
30. Collections of masks from East Greenland are preserved in the Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allaagaateqarfialu (the National Museum and Archives) in Nuuk, the National Museum in Copenhagen, the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna, the Ammassalik Museum in Ammassalik, the Museon in the Hague, the National Museum of Ethnology Leiden, and the Musée de l’Homme houses the collection made by Gessain and Paul Emil Victor. 31. Caricature masks and masks resembling particular persons are mentioned in page 74 and
210 ff, see also figure 112 and figure 113.
33. The number of (winter) houses increased between 1884 and 1932 from 13 to 71, and the number of inhabitants increased from 413 to 945 (Scoresbysund or Ittoqqortoormiit included). The average number of individuals per house decreased from 32 to 13, where- as the average numbers of individuals per tent did not change (Mikkelsen 1934:59). 34. According to Robert-Lamblin, the first cloth tents appeared in 1922, their numbers
increasing rapidly, whereas the numbers of skin tents decreased, and they disappeared in the two decades that followed (1986:82-84).
35. The number of umiaks fluctuated during the first decades of the twentieth century, and decreased. In the 1950s they were gradually replaced by wooden boats (Robert-Lamblin 1986:83).
36. The first rifles available in East Greenland were obtained through barter with South Greenlanders, West Greenlanders, and Europeans during journeys to South and West Greenland.
37. See Eistrup (1989:106). “Purchases of gunpowder rose from 55 to 127 kg a year, and the annual purchase of cartridge cases increased from 17500 to 57000.” (Mikkelsen and Sveistrup 1944:150,161; Robert-Lamblin 1986:96.)
38. However, the losses of seals also increased; dead seals may sink, especially at the end of the summer when the blubber layer under the skin is thin (Mikkelsen 1934:71-72).
39. The first seal nets appear in 1915-1919 (see Robert-Lamblin (1986:96). According to Holm and Petersen the first hunters who adopted seal nets were civil servants (partly) work- ing at Danish institutions such as the small mission stations, and some local hunters at Tasiilaq, Kulusuk and Kuummiit. Seal hunting with nets turned out to be profitable (Holm and Petersen 1921:625-626; see also Mathiassen 1933:136).
40. In the year 1895-1896 the East Greenlanders delivered 181 sealskins to the Danish trad- ing post. The number of exported sealskins increased to 1593 in 1920-1921, and 6670 in 1932-1933 (Mikkelsen 1934:72). Eistrup mentioned an increase in sealskins sold at the store of c. 950 annually in the period 1889-1910, to c. 5600 annually in the period 1931- 1938. These skins were almost all from ringed seals (the larger seal species were scarce) (Eistrup 1989:107 based on Mikkelsen and Sveistrup 1944: table 25,86).
41. In the period 1898-1910, 476 inhabitants of East Greenland were using thirty umiaks, an average number of 15.9 persons per umiak. In the period 1931-1931, 843 East Greenlanders were using thirty-three umiaks (25.5 persons per umiak).
42. Norwegian hunting along Greenland’s East Coast began in 1898 with the seal-hunting ship Hekla, under Captain Ragnvald Knudsen. Most of their ships were hunting for animal species such as hooded seals, walrus, eider ducks, musk ox, polar bears and salmon after they completed their seal-hunting journeys to West Greenland (Isachsen and Isachsen 1932:22). In the period 1924 to 1931, the Norwegian hunters caught a total of 336,785 hooded seals along the north-east Coast of Greenland.
43. See also Eistrup (1989:107-108), Mikkelsen (1934:96) and Mikkelsen and Sveistrup (1944: table 25,86).
Notes 241
have caused the previously mentioned migrations of East Greenlanders out of the area. 45. According to Sveistrup, as early as 1899 the East Greenlanders spent 27.4% of their
income on European food. Mikkelsen argues that later on this was not only a necessity (due to food shortages in the 1930s), but that the European food, and the new tastes of this pre- viously unknown food, were welcomed by East Greenlanders (Mikkelsen and Sveistrup 1944:90).
46. See Mikkelsen (1934:72); Robert-Lamblin (1986:108) and Eistrup (1989:110).
47. In approximately 1915, one-third of the expenses of the East Greenlandic families was spent on food, about thirty percent on clothes and clothing-related products, fifteen percent on tobacco, and twelve percent on shooting equipment (Mikkelsen 1934:74).
48. Thuesen observes that textiles were products of early trading contacts in West Greenland, going back to the period of the Dutch whalers at the end of the seventeenth and the begin- ning of the eighteenth century (Thuesen, at press, page 2).
49. Seal-leather garments or seal-fur garments with the hair side turned inwards were hardly seen in the photograph collection of Jette Bang at the Arctic Institute in Copenhagen, whereas seal-fur anoraks with the hair side turned out were worn generally. The fur inner garments were replaced by cloth garments and underwear.
50. In some cases religious ideas may have been involved in the way children were dressed. Apparently, Tinbergen was unaware of the many religious and spiritual ideas and traditions, such as the changing of small children’s gender, or the dressing of boys as girls and vice versa, to protect children against danger, or to create a balanced gender distribution within the family structure. Tinbergen gives a functional explanation of social, cultural and econom- ic traditions and developments in East Greenlandic society. In 1932/33, when Tinbergen and his wife travelled along the coast of East Greenland, old religious traditions were already partly extinct or no longer openly practiced, owing to the presence of clergymen. Some orphans were dressed in the discarded garments (sometimes rags) of their adoptive family members (see Van Zuylen photograph no. AF158).
51. On this photograph the traditional hunting technique with an extended harpoon was demonstrated to the Dutch researcher Tinbergen, who visited East Greenland in 1933- 1934. This technique had already been abandoned by that time.
52. By then, they were made out of sheepskin or dog skin, and they finally disappeared at the end of the twentieth century.
53. In North Greenland polar-bear fur trousers continued to be used up to the present day, owing to the much more severe climate.
54. These trousers made out of seal fur were wide enough to put on without opening them in front, and were pulled tight with a seal-leather cord through the upper edging. The first home-made cloth trousers can be seen in photographs taken by Rüttel in 1902, Krabbe in 1904, and Thalbitzer in 1906 (Christensen & Ebbesen 1985:39,61,79).
55. In 1932/33Van Lohuizen collected a gut-skin coat (Museon 57655). A gut-skin frock col- lected by Paul Emil Victor is now in the Musée de L’Homme in Paris.
56. The collection of the Musée de L’Homme in Paris, France, includes a pair of watertight seal- skin trousers, collected in Ammassalik (Tasiilaq) in 1934 by Paul Emil Victor (MH 34.175- 3300).
58. Different types of mittens also remained in use. Traditional seal-leather kayak mittens with two thumbs (maattaalit) as well as mittens made of seal fur, and polar-bear fur mittens, can be found (aaqqalit) in the museum collections of East Greenland dating from the 1930s. 59. Woollen socks were already obtainable at the end of the nineteenth century, and became
part of the Tunumiit wardrobe during the 1930s (Utne 1930:150). Woollen socks were worn inside the seal-fur boots, and were often taken off inside the houses.
60. An elderly informant related: “Then, shoes were not available in the shop” (“Sko rangilat, pisiniapikme parangilat”). This statement is confirmed by the photograph collections dating from the 1930s, in which European footwear for women was absent, and by information from the KNI. The letters from Van Schouwenburg (1932) confirm the absense of European footwear: “From Angmagssalik we received a message that they do not have many shoes there. So we try to get warm shoes here [in Copenhagen] in the middle of a heat wave.” (Van Schouwenburg 2002: 11 July 1932.)
61. The slippers in the Musée de L’Homme are made of white depilated sealskin. They are made in a large size, edged with a black or dark blue stripe of sealskin, and embroidered with a simple avittarneq (avittat) pattern on the front. This pair of slippers is large enough to fit a European, and it is said that Paul Emil Victor himself possibly wore them. The black slip- pers at the Museon have a small edging in red sealskin, a much larger and more complicat- ed avittarneq decoration in front, and they are combined with inner slippers made of seal fur with a soft edging of white baby seal fur. They are too large to fit Greenlander’s feet. MH 34.175-3455; Mus 48266. (Bernadette Robbe, personal information.)
62. See Jette Bang’s photographs Nos. JB 2971, JB 2973 and JB 2967 (Arctic Institute, Copenhagen). Silk was exclusively used as part of the festive dress for women and girls, out of which the national costume developed later. Christian Rosing mentioned in his book ‘Tunuamiut (østgrønlænderne)’ the use of linen cloth for shirts and underwear, as well as clothing bought in the local shop in Ammassalik (1946 [1906]:27,30).
63. There is a white cotton anorak with hood in the Ammassalik Museum (no. AM n4C 002- 91). The shape of this white cotton anorak fits a male child, although small boys and girls used to wear the same type of coat.
64. In the nineteenth century, the small inner breeches, naatsit, worn by all adult males and females, were often the only garment worn inside the houses. During the first decades of the twentieth century, the traditional inner trousers were gradually replaced by European cloth underwear, such as pants and shorts. In addition, long drawers (long johns) and undershirts were introduced. Initially they were obtained from traders, and later on from the local store in Ammassalik. Cloth garments could be washed. The washing of clothes was an innovation stimulated by the Danes and West Greenlanders. It was not possible to wash skin clothing, as it would become stiff and smelly from the old urine used to prepare the skins (Robert Petersen written communication 1995; see also Van Blankenstein 1933:VIII). 65. This combination of garments was common among older girls and young women.
(Information based on the photographic collections of Jette Bang and others at the Arctic Institute in Copenhagen.)
Notes 243
this modern European fashion influenced women’s dress in the following decades, but in the 1930s indigenous women wearing trousers were not often seen.
67. Thuesen mentioned in his article on change and world fashion in early colonial West Greenlandic dress that men were the first ones to adopt the European fashion. In East Greenland, women seemed to change their wardrobes as fast as men.
68. Photographs dating from the 1930s show elderly women still wearing topknots. At the end of the nineteenth century almost all the women photographed wore their hair tied up in topknots.
69. There are also some similarities with the polar-bear fur man’s coat (with a loose hood inset, which can still be seen today).And with West Greenlandic fur coats and anoraks. See also Bahnson (1993) and previous chapter, this volume.
70. Several types of cap were collected for the Musée de L’Homme in Paris and for the Museon in The Hague, for example an eider-duck cap (MH 34175-3480) and a fox-fur cap (Mus 48204).
71. This type of cap is called Scotch caps in Thuesen (at press:4).
72. Personal information P. van Zuylen 2000. East Greenlanders were familiar with overshoes made out of polar- bear fur. This fur was applied in a highly functional and technical way to clothing worn during the seal hunt at the breathing holes. Polar-bear overshoes contin- ued to be used in the first half of the twentieth century. Boots made of polar-bear fur fell out of use. Later on, overshoes were also made occasionally of other materials such as dog fur. During the 1970s and 1980s imported sheep fur was used for this footwear. However, all types of overshoe were provided with warm soles, adding an extra sole to the daily kami- it. Sole-less overshoes were absent from East Greenland material culture.
73. Musée de L’Homme amaarngut MH 34175/3264. See also Christensen and Ebbesen 1985:79 and 99, by W. Thalbitzer 1906, Arctic Institute. Women began to decorate their amaarngut with white, red and occasionally blue beads. These bead decorations were added to those parts of the amaarngut that were decorated in the nineteenth century. Then, European bead strings were already occasionally in use, but decorations were usually made of white and brown leather strips, white and brown leather embroidery avittarneq (avittat) (in which ammassaat vertebrae were sometimes used as beads). Bone and ivory beads were also added.
74. Mariane Petersen recorded a story of an East Greenlandic woman, who persuaded her hus- band to buy her beads to make a necklace. The beads cost as much as a very ‘expensive’ umiak. (M. Petersen, personal communication 2002.)
75. Women may occasionally also have made bracelets and anklets, but no evidence of this was found. In the collection of the Musée de L’Homme there are two wrist-bands made of dog fur (MH 34175-3489 and MH 34175-3490). They probably functioned as protection against severe cold rather than as adornments. An object in the Musée de L’Homme (MH 34.175-3350) may have served as an armlet or arm pocket. It is beautiful and extensively decorated with a series of beads. Later on, knitted bracelets became part of the women’s national costume, under the influence of West Greenland garments (see next chapter this volume).
1982:68). (See Nooter 1976:7-8; Gessain, Dorais, Enel 1982:45-46; Robbe and Dorais 1986: 172,175,265 for a discussion of notions of leadership.)
77. In West and South Greenland a “board of guardians” had been active. These boards, con- sisting partly of Danish officials and Greenlandic hunters, fishermen or good kayakers, resulted from an initiative by Rink, then inspector of South Greenland, and Samuel Kleinschmidt, one of the Moravian missionaries, in 1856. The boards of guardians dis- cussed public affairs such as education and public health, stimulated independence and enterprise amongst Greenlanders, and negotiated affairs concerning the natives, such as crimes and punishments. The East Greenlandic hunting councils, established much later, resembled this type of democratic institution, and shaped the participation of East Greenlanders in the administration of the area (Lindow 1929:59-60).
78. See the photographic collections from the first half of the twentieth century, especially the Van Zuylen photographs providing the names of the East Greenlanders portrayed. 79. East Greenlandic informants remarked: “In that period there were a lot of Frenchmen here.
They may have brought European clothing and footwear with them from France.” 80. See Jette Bang’s photographs nos 2772 and 2801 in the Arctic Institute, Copenhagen.
Tunumiit informants mentioned that Danish, but also French and Dutch researchers, brought European clothing and shoes with them.
81. On the East Greenland photographs dating from the 1930s in the Arctic Institute in Copenhagen, only seven out of the approximately 130 males counted wore pullovers or waistcoats, and even fewer wore European cloth overcoats, whereas c. one hundred East Greenlanders wore cloth anoraks.
82. See Christensen & Ebbesen, ‘Angamagssalik itsak - I gamle dage’, page 28-38.
83. East Greenlandic women seemed to prefer white beads for decorating the red hair ribbons. The decorative patterns (in beads) often resembled the much older patterns (in brown and white sealskin) on nineteenth-century seal-leather head scarves (see NMC Ld.54.2, MH 34175-3383, MH 34175-2637).
84. In the 1930s, long trousers were exclusively worn by men. Women accompanying male rel- atives on a dog sledge in winter may have borrowed cloth or seal-fur trousers.
85. Unfortunately, only a few examples of underwear from the beginning of the twentieth cen- tury are available in the museum collections, or on photographs dating from this period. 86. Examples of nineteenth-century male and female boots with zigzag, cross (double zigzag)
or meander decorations can be seen in NMC Ld 124, NMC L 5023, NMC L 4401, NMC Ld 20, NMC LD 135, and NMC L 1544.
Examples of female boots with zigzag decoration, dating from the 1930s, can be seen in MH 34.175-3410, MH 34.175-3434, MH 34.175-3413 and Mus 48202.
87. Kaalund stresses that almost all Inuit clothing decoration followed the seams or the edges; this is also obvious here. She continues: “When the dress follows the natural contours of the body, the seams do, as well. Therefore certain seams denote anatomical constructions. But how beautiful it is!” (Kaalund 1979:148, translation from Danish by C.Buijs.) 88. Short white boots may have been worn more often by younger women, and red ones more
often by older women. This colour division was found in the long boots.
Notes 245
Transformation and integration,
East Greenlandic clothing in the second half of the twentieth century
1. In 1996 there were 55.863 inhabitants of Greenland in total; 27 % were younger than fif- teen years of age (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996: 139, 448-449).
2. East Greenland was not exceptional in its rapid population growth. “The population of West Greenland also increased rapidly, if not quite as rapidly as that of East Greenland, in the 20th century, up until the 1940s. The Greenland population of the whole country dou- bled in the first fifty years of our century. In the years between 1940 to1965 it doubled again.” (Robert-Lamblin 1986:20-21.)
3. The average growth based on the index (see table 1) was 2,8 in 1950, increasing to 4,6 in 1960 and 4,7 in 1970, and decreasing to 1,3 in 1980, 2,2 in 1990 and 1,7 in 1996. 4. In 1970 68% of the population in East Greenland was still living in the settlements, and
32% in Tasiilaq. The ratio between town and villages changed from 32: 68 in 1970 to 55 : 45 in favour of the town Tasiilaq, and 55 % of the East Greenlandic population lived in the district capital Tasiilaq in 1996. Migration towards the towns was already taking place in West Greenland in the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth centu- ry and resulted in 70% of the population (born in Greenland) living in towns in 1970, 76% in 1980, 79% in 1990 and 80 % in 1996 (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996: 438, 442). 5. The number of settlements in East Greenland dropped from fifteen in 1960 to ten in 1988.
The same trend was found in West Greenland, and to a lesser extent in North Greenland (see Lanting 1995:262).
6. The number of skin tents and skin boats (umiaks) decreased from 62 and 37 respectively in 1920, to 6 and 28 in 1940 and 0 and 14 in 1958. At the beginning of the 1960s, umi- aks disappeared as well (Robert-Lamblin 1986:83).
7. Nooter mentioned 19 kayak owners (and 21 kayaks) in Tiniteqilaaq in 1967/68, and 21 owners (and 21 kayaks) in 1972 (1976:33). In the period from 1967 until 1972 the num- ber of hunters without a kayak increased from 16 to 23. There were four kayaks left in Tiniteqilaaq in 1986, and these were no longer in use in 1997 and 1998. However, in 2001 a new kayak was built (Robert-Lamblin 1986:99; Nooter 1976:33 and 1988:218; Buijs fieldwork 1997, 1998 and 2001).
8. “Ammassalik hunters started buying boats in the 1960s. At first only a few hunters were able to obtain a medium or long-term loan from the council to buy a boat with an inboard motor, where the covered part of the small deck served as a shelter or berth. In summer 1967, only 48 East Greenlanders in the whole district possessed such a craft (8 in Tasiilaq, fourteen in Kuummiit, 6 in Kulusuk, 3 in Tiileqilaaq, 4 at Sermiligaaq, 11at Isertoq and Pikiitsi and 2 at Qernertivartivit.” (Robert-Lamblin 1986:98)
These boats cost between DKr 10.000 and 25.000 in 1967 (Robert-Lamblin 1986:98). According to research conducted by Grete Hovelsrud-Broda (1997:336) the costs of fibre- glass motor boats were about DKr 35.000, and the cost of outboard motors (30 hp) c. DKr 16.000 in 1995.
9. A similar development occurred in the Canadian Arctic (see Wenzel 1985:3).
11. See for the numbers of seal species captured in Greenland the statistics in ‘Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat’ 1996, Nuuk, page 462, table 5.3.
12. In East Greenland the number of sealskins bought annually by the KNI varied between 6200 in 1965 to 9400 in 1975, and increased to c. 15.000 in 2000 (Robert-Lamblin 1983:297; KNI Information 2001). In small settlements such as Tiniteqilaaq, the number of sealskins sold varied between 2000 and 4000 during the 1990s. For every household with at least one hunter, between sixty and a hundred sealskins were sold annually in a small East Greenland settlement during the 1990s (Hovelsrud-Broda 1997:83, 176). For various species captured in a small settlement in East Greenland, see ‘The Seal: Integration of an East Greenlandic Economy’ by Grete Hovelsrud-Broda, 1997, page 176.
13. The average amount of edible tissue in ringed seals in East Greenland is about 26 kg; in hooded seals, 150 kg; in bearded seals 128 kg; and in harp seals 101 kg (Hovelsrud-Broda 1997:176).
14. The prices of the best types of sealskins (A1, B1 and C1 before 1994 and categories 1 to 3 from 1994 onwards) rose from DKr 120 in 1967 to DKr 539 in 1997 (categories A1 and 1), from DKr 80 to 350 (categories B1 and 2) and from DKr 40 to DKr 290 (categories C1 and 3).1 In the year 2000 a first class ringed sealskin costs DKr 533, and a hooded seal-
skin DKr 556.
15. In 1960-61 the value of a first class polar-bear skin was DKr 200 (with a possible bonus of DKr 100). The value of polar-bear skins increased gradually to DKr 2500 in 1974 and DKr 8222 in 1995. In the year 2000, polar-bear skins were accepted by the KNI according to size in metres. One metre of best quality polar-bear skin costs DKr 3465. For a c. 2.5-metre polar bear this makes c. DKr 86632 (Robert-Lamblin 1983:320; Grønland Kalaallit
Nunaat 1996:462, table 5.3 and 5.4; KNI Information 2001).
16. According to Lanting (1995:106-107), 95% of Greenland’s proceeds from fishing / hunt- ing derived from fishing in 1985.
17. The average income from sealskins per household varies between DKr 13.000 and 29.600. The average gross household income for 1994 was estimated at DKr 157.000 DKr (Hovelsrud-Broda 1997:83,100).
18. The Kalaallit Nunaanni Aalisartut Piniartullu Katuffiat.
19. The numbers of hunters vary from 9519 in 1993, when the new licencing system was intro- duced, to 7025 in 1995, whereas in 1981 the number of hunters was estimated seven to eight hundred. They provided an economic basis for about 2500 people (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996:93, table 5.5; Årsberetninger 1981:45).
20. Of the 141 registered full-time hunters in the Tasiilaq districts, there are 45 hunters living in Tasiilaq-town and 16 in Tiniteqilaaq, while 133 part-time hunters inhabit Tasiilaq-town, and 17 hunters live in Tiniteqilaaq (according to Tasiilaq Municipality Information 2001.) 21. In the period 1956 - 1978 cod production varied between 20.000 tons and 100.000 tons
in Kuummiit; c. 2500 tons and c. 180.00 tons in Kulusuk; and 2600 tons and 125.000 tons in Tiniteqilaaq (Robert-Lamblin 1986:114).
22. Only two fishing vessels were mentioned in the official Greenland statistics in 1995: the lowest number of any Greenlandic region, and there was only one paid employee (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996:460).
Notes 247
24. This specialization is based on an ancient division of labour according to gender. There is some kind of specialization within the male art-producing group. Some carvers are ‘special- ists’ in making sculptures of polar bears, others concentrate on sculptures of sea mammals or tupilat.
25. The trade in art product of East Greenland carvers has fluctuating returns and had a turnover of DKr 275.000 in 1996 at the Art Workshop and DKr 43.000 at the Sewing Atelier Skæven in 1996. The returns from sales of art at the Hotel Ammassalik are unknown (see Ammassallip Kommunia Budget 2000 and Budgetforslag 2001. See also Caterine Enel’s article (1981) on the workshop in Kulusuk, East Greenland in the 1970s).
26. Including cleaning personnel. Four employees are appointed as seamstresses on a regular or irregular base, including the supervisor of Skæven. (Ammassalik Kommunia Budget 1998; personal communication Skæven 1998). ‘Skæven’ is Danish for ‘cutting’; messerpoq means sewing in East Greenlandic language and messertapik is the place where the sewing is done. 27. A negative side of this profitability principle is that the quality of the sewing and the qual-
ity of the fur products may decline, due to the great emphasis laid by the municipality on products made rapidly to keep labour costs low, and to maintain an attractive price for the products.
In 1998 there was an ongoing discussion with the municipality, concerning products such as fur coats, which are too time-consuming, but which are very popular amongst tourists. They may disappear out of Skæven’s range of products (personal communication, munic- ipality and Skæven 1998).
The returns from Skæven’s business fluctuated between DKr 744.000 in 1995 and DKr 490.000 in 1998. The sales amounted to DKr 599.000 in 1999. Skæven had a deficit of DKr 668.000 in 1995 and DKr 377.000 in 1999. The municipality of Tasiilaq is paying off this deficit.
28. Every year Skæven buys c. 1000 tanned sealskins from the tanneries of Great Greenland in Qaqortoq, c.250 of which are sealskins painted black and c. 150 sealskins in the colours red, orange and grey. Capes can be bought for prices between DKr 600 and DKr 1150. A fur anorak with fox-fur edging costs between DKr 2300 and DKr 3000. (Skæven, person- al information 2001.)
29. In 2001, baby kamiit cost DKr 325, slippers cost between DKr 260 for babies and DKr 460 for the largest size for adults. Mittens varied from DKr 190 to DKr 575 (polar-bear fur mit- tens cost DKr 1050). A seal-fur anorak with fox-fur edging cost between DKr 2300 and DKr 3000. A seal-fur jacket could be obtained for between DKr 7000 and DKr 9500 (see Prislist Skæven 2001).
30. The number of Arctic visitors increased five times between 1992 and 1998 (Veggel 1999:122).
31. Culture tourism might appear in Greenland in the future. Accommodation is sometimes provided by Greenlandic families, and information on the Greenlanders is provided in tourist leaflets, often illustrated with attractive pictures of Greenlanders in national cos- tumes, or happy, smiling Greenlandic children.
32. According to Tommasini the number of tourists visiting Tasiilaq town is 1500 every year (2002:119).
34. The leader of the Ammassalik Museum was, in cooperation with the municipality, also involved in local tourism in 1998. A specialized Danish tourist agent was appointed in sum- mer 2001.
35. In 1995 the old-age pensions amounted to DKr 6901 per person; førtidspension was DKr 1381 per person and DKr 10351 respectively, and DKr 2072 per couple (both aged sixty or more) (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996:517, Table 18.1).
36. In the 1960s the allowances were still partly paid in boxes of powdered milk for feeding chil- dren. Nooter wrote in his diaries about the enormous numbers of boxes piled up in one of the houses. The introduction of powdered milk stimulated Greenlandic mothers to stop breast-feeding their infants.
37. During the 1960s the amount paid for one child was DKr 50 in a three-month period, which was raised to DKr 153 per child per three-month period in 1977 (Robert-Lamblin 1986:119). In 1995 the allowances were raised by fifty percent. Child allowances (normal- bidrag) were DKr 4458 per half year and DKr 743 (almindelig børnetilskud) per quarter. Parents or guardians who benefited from an old-age pension or early pension received DKr 758 and DKr 748 respectively every month (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996:517, Table 18.1).
38. The cost of day-care varies between c. DKr 250 and c. DKr 2600 per month.
39. The parents with the lowest income (less than DKr 140.000) do not have to pay for this service, whereas parents in the highest income categories (over DKr 240.000 per month) pay c. DKr 1900 for a child’s place in børnehave (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996:376- 378).
40. See the paragraph on education, this volume.
41. The expenditure on social allowances (old-age pensions, unemployment benefit, pregnan- cy and illness payments, and child allowances) can be found in Greenland Statistics (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996:481, Table 9.8).
42. There are 83 Churches or school-chapels in Greenland, of which 7 in East Greenland in 1995 (Grønland Kalaaalliit Nunaat 1996:408, 529).
43. The Lutheran Church in Greenland is part of the Danske Folkekirk. Other religious denominations in Greenland are the Catholic Church, the Adventist congregation, the Pentecostal movement, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and some other small religious move- ments. These are a minority and do not play a role in East Greenland.
44. There were 58 educated catechists and 33 uneducated catechists appointed in Greenland in 1994. And there were 52 persons working as organists (Grønland Kalaaalliit Nunaat 1996:408).
45. There was no appointed minister in East Greenland in 1995 and there were 5 uneducated and 2 educated catechists. 96 infants were baptized, and 112 youngsters confirmed and 36 marriages were solemnized (Grønland Kalaaalliit Nunaat 1996:408, 529). A West- Greenlandic minister was working in Tasiilaq in 1997 and 1998 and in 2001 the first East Greenlandic minister (palasi) was appointed there.
46. In the 1960s Danish teachers were appointed as school directors in East Greenland, where- as in the 1980s the function of the school director was taken over by (East) Greenlandic teachers.
Notes 249
(the latter three gave up teaching). Between 1943 and 1963 a second and third classful of six or seven East Greenlanders were educated as teachers (Robert-Lamblin 1986:131). 48. “In 1972, of the 41 teachers in the area, 25 were Danes, 6 were West Greenlanders and ten
East Greenlanders. (…) This shows how efforts were increased to teach the children Danish and to make them bilingual.” (Robert-Lamblin 1986:132.)
49. In 1995 there were 32 children in Tasiilaq and 34 in the villages in the first class, 262 and 225 in the second to ninth class respectively, 19 and 4 in special education, 120 and 0 (since this type of education is not provided in the settlements) in the tenth to twelfth class, and a total number of 414 students in Tasiilaq town and 259 in the East Greenlandic settle- ments within the Tasiilaq district (Grønland Kalaaalliit Nunaat 1996: 511, Table 14.1). See also Lanting (1995:161).
50. Information provided by the municipality of Tasiilaq and interviews with some teachers and parents.
51. Tasiilaq’s primary school has a Danish director and a Greenlandic deputy headmaster. 52. There are complaints about the quality of the Danish lessons when this language is taught
by Greenlandic teachers (personal communication, school director Tiniteqilaaq 1997). 53. The lessons in traditional professions were cancelled, according to the school leader of
Tiniteqilaaq, because the municipality’s budget was inadequate. The traditional Greenlandic skills are organized as an optional course along with home economics, hand- icraft and manual training, computer education and typing. The latter are far more popu- lar than education in the traditional skills (Grønland Kalaallit Nunaat 1996:481, Table 9.8).
54. This meteorological interest in East Greenland began in the 1930s. In 1932-1933 the Dutch meteorological expedition stayed for one year in Tasiilaq in order to carry out research into weather conditions (see Tinbergen 1934; Bettenhaussen & Kerkhoven 1999; Buijs & Van Zuylen 2003; letters from Van Zuylen, not published; Van Schouwenburg 2002).
55. The American base at Ikateq and a smaller base at Kulusuk attracted East Greenlandic fam- ilies to settle next to the base. Slum-like Greenlandic settlements arose there. These fami- lies gave up hunting and lived from food, products, clothing found on the airbase rubbish tip, and from generous gifts from the American soldiers. “In my youth I have seen East Greenlanders who abandoned most of their normal dress. They looked really ‘fantastic’ in their Uniforms discarded by the Americans; too big for them and worn peculiar. Men and women, and also children, dresses all in the same type of dress (…).” (Mikkelsen 1960:206, translation by C. Buijs; see also 209-215).
56. In 1961 representatives of Ittoqqortoormiit (Scorcebysund) and Thule were also sent for the first time to the Landsråd in Nuuk. It was not until 1958 that these three districts (Tasiilaq included) acquired the right to elect two Greenlandic representatives to Greenland’s Landråd, thereafter participating in the Danish parliament (Folketing) in Copenhagen (Robbert-Lamblin 1986:14).
57. According to Paldam (1994:118-123), the absence of Greenlanders as leaders in the house- building branch, private business, and trade can be explained by the paternalistic policy of the Danish colonizers, the huge subsidies from Denmark (preventing Greenlanders from developing private initiative) and the follow-up of a paternalistic, socialist Greenlandic Home government.
59. Bo Wagner Sørensen emphasises the rise of a category in the middle, between Greenlanders and Danes, the ‘halfies’. They are in a difficult position since they belong neither entirely to the first nor to the the latter category (Sørensen 1997; see also R. Petersen 1995). 60. T-shirts with short sleeves, cotton jeans or trousers, tights, long johns and under-shirts as
an outer layer, as well as shorts, are worn indoors. The East Greenlanders do not wear shoes inside the house, only socks and stockings or they go bare foot. Plastic or imitation leather slippers are also popular for indoor use.
61. The information for this section on trade and shops was obtained from the chef of the Pilersuisoq A/S in Tasiilaq in summer 2001.
62. See also Neil Blair Christensen, ‘Allaqatissaat! Indigenous to the Internet’. Yumtzilob 12.3-4, 2000: page 419-434.
63. In the past, the preparation of sealskins and the sewing and designing of garments were the most important tasks for women. There was a connection between sewing and the spiritu- al world, game and fertility. Nowadays, women buy ready-made clothes in shops, and only a few older women are able to sew sealskin clothing and cloth garments based on tradition- al patterns.
64. The service building, built in 1995, also functions as a meeting point.
65. For the preparation of sealskins, see the publication by Bernadette Robbe (1975) and Grete Hovelsrud-Broda (1997:158ff ).
66. Respondents mentioned that young women usually learned the scraping process with the kiliilarnaq and soapsuds (imatsivoq) but were not allowed to scrape hides at the qapiarpik with the much sharper sakkeq.
67. In the past, old women completely wore their teeth away with chewing sealskins and boot soles.
68. In the past, namesakes also played a specific role in the meat-sharing system. They received specific, defined parts of the animals in conformity with their kinship terms.
69. In the 1960s, babies were still delivered at home, even in the small villages. The women in labour were assisted by the jordmor (nurse-midwife) (Nooter 1976:103). Jordmor Martha can be seen on the photographs taken by Jette Bang, measuring and weighing the new-born Rosalia at Kulusuk in 1961. She dressed the baby in a white cotton nappy and baby shirt (photograph collection of Jette Bang, Arctic Institue Copenhagen, 9970-9975.) The ten- dency to dress infants in ready-made shop-bought clothes developed after the World War II. Before 1945 cotton baby garments were often homemade.
Nowadays, women give birth to their infants at the district hospital in Tasiilaq. After birth, the children are measured and weighed, washed and they are given white cotton baby clothes.
70. Fur clothing for small children combined with black or white kamiit can indicate the child’s gender; the black colour generally stands for a boy, whereas white indicates femininity. See also new-made children’s clothing from Skæven dating from 1997 in the collection of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (RMV 5882-38 baby boots, RMV 5882-39 fur children’s mittens and boy’s costume made out of seal fur RMV 5882-32a,b,c dating from 1997 and newly obtained clothing in RMV collection dating from 2001).
